Mud glorious mud.

Unfortunatly the OEs B festival was cancelled, which meant some players got a Sunday morning lye in. For the rest it was off to Beccs for what was to be a very, very muddy encounter.
First up - Medway and right from the start it was clear our Sidcup U9s were all up for this game. It was not long before our first score of the day was registered, the players superbly moved the ball across the pitch inviting the Medway players in to make the tackle and off-loading with quick hands to keep the ball alive. A break from our scrum half towards the left wing with just a lone defender to beat a try looked certain, but unselfishly he drew the defender in to make full advantage of an overlap to his left and passed the ball to the winger who took the ball at pace and run over the line unchallenged - a text book 2 v 1 and a great start. Medway came back, but each time they tried to make a break were meet with strong tackles from Sidcup players right across the pitch. As we continued to build momentum by controlling the ruck and dominate possession, we drove our opponents back into their own half and on about the 5/6 passage our full back collected the ball from the back of another strong ruck and made a break down the right wing, sprinted over the line and scored our second try. The game was finished off with another great try from Matthew, final score Sidcup 3 - Medway 0.
Next up were Bromley who had already beaten us 3-0 & 2-0 this season, but this game was a to be a much closer contest. Bromley struggled to break through our defense but equally we struggled to build any real momentium as our boys were repeatedly penalised for being off their feet in the ruck, but to their credit no-one argued with the ref and took his decision as final. Bromley did eventually find a way through, but to give away 8-9 penalties in a single game and only lose by one try shows how hard our boys worked.

Another good performance from Sidcup in the third game, but Cranbrook proved to be too strong and for the first time our defense lost it's shape. Cranbrook went on to be crowned unbeaten champions and beat Edenbridge 2-1 in the cup final, so a 0-2 loss against a well drilled team, is still a respectable result. Our final group game was against host team Beccs, who had beaten us 4-8 at our home festival, but this Sidcup team was not going to let past results effect them and we dominated the first half possession and made camp in the Beccs half. We done everything right apart from score a try which you sensed was inevitable. Beccs came out much stronger in the second half and pinned us back in our own half for the first few minutes but our defense was solid. A Beccs player snatched a lose ball and made a break, but was tackled to the ground, it ended up in a mass pile of bodies close to our try line. As the ref blew the whistle and peeled off the players one at a time, an out stretched arm suddenly appeared from the bottom with the ball just touching the line - try awarded 0-1 Beccs. Sidcup re-took control of them game and responded with another superb try as we sniffed out the smallest of gaps to sprint down the right wing and level the score. With a few minutes still to play it looked like the momentum had swung back in our favor as we put everything into the attack, unfortunately the game ended with two very badly timed high tackles on Sidcup players and the score remained 1-1. Sidcup finished forth and just missed out on a final in what was a very tight group. The top three teams in our group all went on to win their respective finals.

We had asked our players to go out there, work as a team and show everyone what they can do and they certainly did just that. The coaches of the other team were impressed enough with our players that they approached me with some really great comments "that was proper campaign rugby", "your boys certainly had the best passing game of any team here today." and even the ref commented on the great attitude of our players "I like your team as every time I point out a mistake they actually listen and learn".

Well done to all the boys, we are very proud of you.

WHO ARE WE...

SIDCUP!